Creature Fear
by possibilist
Summary: But sometimes he swears that there are still shadows out there, black cloaks and Unforgivable curses and ignorant beliefs. It's not even easier to breathe. RHr drabble, post-DH.


**AN (1):** Hey, friends! Well, because I have finals next week, the most logical use of my time is quite obviously to procrastinate by giving you guys a new little story to (hopefully) enjoy. One of my good friends had the idea of a sort of neo-Death Eater fic, and this is what my brain decided to turn that into. :) (Also, the title is a Bon Iver song... always brilliant!) With that being said, thanks to my lovely beta TangledMess, and, if I don't post before then, Happy Christmas! Leave a review as a present? :) As always, thanks!

**AN (2):** Recommended listening:"Shine" by Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

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><p><strong>Creature Fear<strong>

_Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy.  
><em>- Winston Churchill

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><p>Their fifty-second night together, there's a noise, pounding against the roof of the Burrow, loud enough to wake him with a jolt. He untangles his limbs from hers, praying that she doesn't wake up. His heart is a jackhammer against his ribs, in the bad way, the painful way, and he feels his face becoming flush with fear. He stands and grabs his wand and walks to the window.<p>

It's the branch of a tree, pounding along with his heartbeat.

But sometimes he swears that there are still shadows out there, black cloaks and Unforgivable curses and ignorant beliefs. It's not even easier to breathe.

...

It's the first time in her entire life that she can remember being distinctly terrified after Voldemort died. Professor McGonagall calls her quietly from the library after classes are over for the day, asking her to gather the younger students of her house and secure them inside the castle.

Apparently there had been a threat - a credible one, too - by some rogue Death Eaters.

And as she's sitting in the Gryffindor common room, curled up in a chair and trying to pretend like everything is normal and good and safe, she closes her eyes and plays with the fraying edge of the sleeve of her favorite cardigan and pretends that she's not herself.

That she doesn't know all too well what it feels like to be captured. To want to die. To fight and fight and fight and fight until she's just exhausted.

Ginny sits next to her, though, and she misses Ron startlingly in this moment, so she clasps her hands (because she has two, and that will be good enough for now), straightens her back, and explains to a room of _children_ what will happen if they must do it all over again.

...

Once upon a time, they could walk together down Diagon Alley and just worry about Draco Malfoy offering up a snide comment about her hair or his family.

And even though, he figures, this is still probably the worst thing that could happen, as he grasps her hand with a smile (and Merlin, she's beautiful), he notices she still flinches when someone in black - a woman, curly hair, tall - walks by briskly. Her brown eyes disappear between a furrowed brow and pale eyelids, and he silently curses every Death Eater still alive for making everything so hard.

George offers him a job.

He looks at her scar as he declines.

...

Threats get made on the Ministry nearly every _hour_, she discovers. Most of the time they seem silly and a few actually make her laugh out loud (which causes multiple people to stare - she had been through a lot, after all, and she hopes they're not too worried), but some of them, handfuls of them her first year, shake her to the core.

She often tells him these things at lunch, when they get to see each other, and he takes her hand and smiles a smile she's really never seen before, because his eyes are scared and sad and it betrays the rest of his face.

It's then when she realizes that the threats sometimes are very real.

...

His fifth real mission, he ends up stupifying Rookwood, square in the chest. Harry stills next to him for a second, closes his eyes (and was it a prayer? he wonders), then continues on fighting.

Later, as they sit Rookwood down in an interrogation room, he thinks of the scar sliced across her chest (and of the first time he saw it, how he loved her even more then), and he doesn't even bother to ask the bastard any questions before placing a punch directly in the middle of his nose.

Rookwood's gushing blood as he walks out, but no one goes in to stop it. He swears he even sees Harry smile.

...

There's a kidnapping attempt, once. It's poorly planned and over before it even begins (she's _Hermione __Weasley, _and don't they know what that means?). They don't even make it into her office before the Aurors apprehend them, quickly and with little mess.

But one of them shouts _mudblood_ at her. She remembers to breathe and pulls herself together quickly, answers all of the Aurors' questions (yes, she actually _did_ believe House Elves had rights), and she smiles and does all of the right things, thanking them all for saving her.

At home later, curled in his arms and wrapped in a blanket, she clutches his jumper and sobs. He kisses her forehead and brushes aside her bangs and promises that no one will ever hurt her again. It's the _again_ that makes all of the difference.

...

He wakes up in St. Mungo's, to her stern (and relieved) face. She tells him how _stu_pid he is to carelessly get hit by a curse (but it was just deflected, he tells her), and he can't help but laugh, although his ribs are sore.

She clenches her jaw, her little mouth pulling into a serious line, and then she starts crying. But he notices that she's also laughing too, a desperate, sad laugh.

So he takes her hand and sits up, and she puts it against her stomach, and he feels their daughter kick.

You have to be more careful, she tells him.

He agrees now, he really does.

...

Harry and Ginny give Rose a sneakoscope for her first birthday.

She wants to throw it away, under the painfully hopeful thought that it will never light up or spin or even hint at life.

But she's been through a hell she won't forget (she's the brightest witch of her age), so it sits in Rose's nursery faithfully, as if the notion itself will protect her.

...

He explains to Rose that Mum's having a boy, and Rosie's entire face lights up, her little tiny smile a mirror of Hermione's (and it already turns his heart to mush, and he knows he never really did have a chance), and she squeals that one day he'll be big and strong so he can protect her.

So he tells her yes, absolutely, that Hugo will always keep her safe, because he just can't bear to break her heart.

...

When she starts her new (better) job at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, the first thing she does is put a picture of Hugo and Rose on her desk. They're laughing and waving, their hands flapping across the frame, their hair bright red and lovely.

It's not like she doesn't get scared still, but the draft of a new law that offers more severe punishment for blood-status related crimes sits on her desk, and she looks at the scar that still is stitched into the skin under her arm.

But she has them - her children - and they deserve the world. She gave it to them once already (they haven't realized this yet, but she knows one day they will), and she decides she certainly won't stop until they can have it again.

...

Rose learns to read. She's much too smart for her own good - he knows this already when she's just five. He tucks her in one night and Rose asks what mudblood means, and also that she'd never heard the word, just read it on Mum's arm.

He doesn't cry and he doesn't get mad, he just breathes and tells her.

Rose is solemn and he thinks that maybe she doesn't really understand, but as he leaves, he hears her little voice in the darkness, declaring a _thank __you __and __tell __Mummy __thank __you __too __for __saving __the __world_ that makes his knees buckle.

He promises he will.

...

Hugo has a bad dream one night, climbing into bed with her because he's away on a mission. Secretly, she's glad when either Hugo or Rose has nightmares on these nights because she really hates sleeping alone, but this one seems especially scary.

Hugo tells her that he dreamt of black cloaks and bad spells and lots of people getting very very hurt, and he also tells her that he's been reading one of Rosie's books lately, _A __History __of __the __Second __Wizarding __War_. She doesn't tell him that he's only seven and shouldn't be reading that (because she's been there, done that, and it only made her want to read things more), she only says that sometimes she has those nightmares too.

Only she leaves out that for her they aren't nightmares, but memories. And when Hugo asks if those men are still out there, she lies. They're all caught, she tells him, even though she's also fairly certain he knows they're not. He nods and snuggles into her side and tells her goodnight, because maybe he wants to believe her anyways.

...

Rose comes home early first year, because there's a small uprising of Death Eaters near Hogwarts and Neville's not taking any chances.

She purposefully strides out of the Floo and wraps him in a strong, desperate hug, and he holds her and tells her everything'll be okay and that she's safe now.

He leaves the next morning and curses the men who scared his family, again and again.

He wins, just like always, and he thinks that must count for something.

...

She comes home after another long day of speeches and laws and pure bureaucracy, and both of her children are there, asleep in their beds even though they're (mostly) grown now - it's the first night of Christmas holiday.

She goes into her study, and he's sitting behind her desk (and she can't help but think he's so handsome), and he smiles.

He tells her that he retired.

Her heart breaks and heals a few times in a second before she says anything, and asks him why.

He says he's been fighting long enough.

She finds herself grinning and kissing him and knocking over all of her quills in the process of sitting backwards on her desk, his weight pressing against her body wonderfully, and the small part of her brain that still doesn't go completely blank at his touch thinks that she's done fighting too.

For now (until tomorrow, because she's the Minister of Magic, and there's still so much to be done) she decides she'll stop. She wonders what took her this long.

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><p>AN: Review? Please? Thanks a million! :)<p> 


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